


Too Much

by Duganator01



Series: RWBY Oneshots [9]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Because Ya Know, Canonical Character Death, Daemons, Fall of Beacon (RWBY), Gen, The Major Character Death tag is for Pyrrha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26992171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duganator01/pseuds/Duganator01
Summary: Daemons dissolve into Golden Dust when they die, everyone knows this. Their bodies were made of the stuff after all, and they returned to it when their person died.But then again, so does Pyrrha Nikos.
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Pyrrha Nikos & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Qrow Branwen & Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long, Qrow Branwen & Summer Rose
Series: RWBY Oneshots [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558006
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> All are of the Dust, and all turn to Dust again

With eyes sharper than any human’s, Qrow Branwen kept a close eye on the battle raging beneath him. Dustakhia flew beside him, their wingtips almost touching with how close they were. Tonight was not the kind of night to get separated.

Grimm tore through the streets and the skies, all red eyes and white bone. The White Fang were still wreaking havoc down there as well. Thank the gods that Jimmy’s damned robots were finally shut off, though who they had to thank for that Qrow couldn’t say for certain.

From his birds-eye view, pun very much intended, he spotted the Nikos girl running out of the tower, followed closely by that one blonde kid. No Oz though, guess he was still below taking care of the would-be Maiden.

Guess it was time for that whole shebang to happen. 

Not a moment too soon, he thought, swooping to one side to dodge a dive bombing Nevermore. Things were getting worse by the second, and they weren’t likely to get another chance by the way the night was going.

“Qrow!” shouted his daemon over the rushing wind. He looked where she was indicating and would have raised his eyebrows in recognition if he currently had any.

Oh shit. Speaking of how the night was going.

A certain dark haired Faunus was weaving through the battlefield, dodging Grimm left and right, all while dragging someone with a hauntingly familiar mane of blonde hair along with them. Behind her, the Faunus’ panther daemon dragged an equally unconscious bear.

Ice flooded his body. Yang and Titus weren’t moving. Why weren’t Yang and Titus moving?!

Meeting Dusty’s eyes he nodded, fairly certain that he would have been unable to verbally respond even if he’d been in human form, but he knew she understood. They were the same person after all.

Wings tucked to his sides, he dove towards the two figures and their daemons. Qrow’s eyes picked up on odd details, like how Yang’s friend was limping, or the tears on her face, or how she was running from something, but there were no Grimm on her metaphorical tail.

Qrow just barely had time to notice how Titus was dripping golden Dust from a wound in his foreleg that mirrored the one in his niece’s arm before he was nearly knocked out of the air by his  _ other _ niece.

His squawk of alarm was echoed in his daemon, and Dusty looked distinctly ruffled where she flapped a meter or so away from him. Being pulled up short in the middle of a dive was never pleasant, and tonight already had his nerves on their last thread.

He eyed the ground, searching for the tell-tale bright hair that would indicate where his definitely injured niece was, but it was gone. 

Qrow did manage to spot Ruby’s cape and Eurus’s familiar grey-furred form darting through the swarming mass of Grimm. Every so often she vanished in a cloud of brighter-than-normal petals and reappeared behind a soon to be melting Grimm, usually flanked by her daemon to ensure the kill. 

They’d be okay, even in this horror show.

But where was Yang?

“We’ll find her,” Dusty called to him, feeding him reassurances through their bond. He only hoped she was right.

He swooped down alleyways, forever thankful for the sharp eyesight granted to him in this form. It was necessary to find Yang, and finding Yang was paramount. 

The only disadvantage of his enhanced eyesight was it allowed him to see more clearly than any human the extent of the carnage hiding in these shadows. Bodies ripped to shreds and left to rot, most in poses that indicated they’d been slaughtered running or trying to hide. 

Golden Dust from dead daemons covered everything like the most macabre glitter imaginable.

The worst bodies were the ones with injuries he recognized as ones not made by the Grimm. Bullet holes from white-shelled robots and violent extremists alike. These weren’t victims of nature, even twisted nature. These people were victims of other people. 

Qrow’s only comfort was that he had yet to recognize Yang or her black-haired friend among the bodies. And the longer he looked, the more likely it became that they’d made it to the docks were Glynda had ordered everyone to retreat for evacuation.

To his right, Dusty called softly that she hadn’t spotted them either, which was comforting at least. Her quiet words were cut off by the roar of a rocket from overhead, and Qrow looked up just in time to see… a locker? 

The blue flames were unmistakable, he’d used the same lockers when he’d gone here after all. But why would there be a weapons locker being launched this late into the battle? All the kids that weren’t armed by now were probably dead, as horrible as it was to think about.

“We’re not having any luck here,” Dusty remarked, and Qrow would have snorted at her choice of words if he’d been able to. Even without looking, Qrow could feel her rolling her eyes at him. “You know what I mean you idiot.”

He did, but hey, sue him. The world was falling the fuck apart, he was gonna take the levity he could take, even and especially if it was at his own expense.

“We should regroup at the docks,” and he followed her when she soared back above the rooftops, “Glynda’ll be wondering where we are.” Yeah she would, but he knew perfectly well that Dusty was only saying this to hide her own worry about their niece.

Gliding over the rooftops, he saw more bodies than he had since his days with the tribe. And even then, never this many all at once.

His heart sank when he vaguely recognized a group of bodies. Same coating of golden Dust on all three of them, but the weapons in their hands identified them as students. Students he vaguely recognized from alcohol-blurred memories of a tournament fight with Nikos’ team.

“Only three bodies,” Dusty commented, echoing his own thoughts. “Maybe the fourth got away.” At least one of them was around to be optimistic. Qrow didn’t really see the point.

Finally reaching the docks, he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding at the sight of the huddled form of his firecracker. And if she was here, and not being crowded by medics and other yahoos, then her injury wasn’t life threatening. Thank the gods.

Swooping behind a lamppost, not even bothering to find a less conspicuous place in his hurry, he landed as a human already running towards the cluster of huddled figures. Dusty swooped after him, wing tips brushing up against his head as she kept pace. The cluster of people was much smaller than he’d been expecting, even after seeing the amount of bodies more first hand than probably anyone besides the dead themselves.

He recognized Yang, obviously, and her black-haired friend. His niece was still unconscious, lying more limp and expressionless than he’d ever seen her and… dear gods… her arm-

Qrow shook himself. There would be time for all that later. He’d just barely relaxed upon seeing that Yang was safe when his heart clenched again upon realizing that now his  _ other  _ niece was missing, along with her white-haired teammate. Winter’s kid sister.

Glynda wasn’t here so he turned to the only other adults present. “Where’s Ruby?” he rasped to Oobleck and Port before he’d even fully reached them. Dusty came and settled on his shoulder as he finally stopped, flapping her wings and shifting restlessly, betraying his own emotions.

The two teacher’s daemons weren’t much better, but they both seemed to be holding themselves together as best as they could. “Miss Rose and Miss Schnee insisted on returning to the tower,” Oobleck said sharply before Port could go off onto what would surely be a well-meaning but long-winded tangent.

“You hafta go after them!” insisted a battered looking blonde kid from where he was crouched beside a pair of even more worse for wear kids. 

Qrow glanced down at the pair, who seemed to be struggling to get up for some reason even with obvious injuries covering them head to two. Their poor daemons were  _ soaked  _ in Dust, but they too were nudging their humans into more upright positions. What the hell?

Probably seeing his confused expression, the blonde kid said, “Jaune and Pyrrha are still down there.” As if he was supposed to know who they were. The kid’s teammates he supposed but still...

Pyrrha. 

Pyrrha  _ Nikos _ . 

He connected the dots. 

“I’ll be right back,” he growled at nobody in particular, taking off at a run back towards the tower where he could see signs of a battle. Fire and gold, but that was all he could see from this distance. That dragon was unmistakable though.

“Make sure Yang gets to a mediship as soon as possible!” Dusty called back to the assembled, ignoring the shocked expressions they bore from his daemon speaking to them directly. Screw the taboos. Enough was falling apart tonight, why not that as well.

Slipping his form back into feathers, he shot through the air like a missile. As the crow flies was the saying, and by the gods he  _ flew _ that night.

Qrow flew and he saw. 

He saw Nikos’s blonde friend crumpled next to the locker he’d spotted earlier. Dead or dying, probably. A golden dog was lying on the ground beside him, so not dead yet then. He had no time.

He saw Jimmy fighting like the machine he was, his daemon a whirlwind of fur and claws beside him. He saw Glynda brushing Grimm aside with a flick of her riding crop like they were no heavier than paper. He had no time.

He saw Winter’s kid sister fighting almost dancing in a snowstorm of glyphs. The flash of her rapier cutting through the oil-smoke bodies of countless Grimm was only outmatched by the glow from the symbols that swirled in the air around her. He had no time.

He saw a pathway of a dark echo of those glyphs tracing their way up to the top of the tower. He saw the last flicker of his niece’s cape and her daemon’s tail disappear over the lip of the tower. No time, no time, no time-

He didn’t see a flash like a bonfire and a sudden end to the fight at the top of the tower.

He  _ did _ see a flash like wings of light and fire, and he heard the gut-wrenching scream and howl that accompanied it.

Qrow was out of time.

If it weren’t for Dusty immediately racing for where the brilliantly white light was barely fading, he probably would have dropped right out of the sky. Only the insistent tug at their lengthening bond kept him moving forward.

Summer. Oh gods it couldn’t be happening again. Not Ruby, please, gods,  _ please _ -

Shooting over the edge of the tower, he was human before he hit the ground. “Ruby!” he shouted, gathering his niece’s body up into his arms. Dusty was at his side nosing her beak through Eurus’s fur. But neither the girl nor her wolf were responding.

They weren’t responding, but the sheer fact that Eurus had yet to scatter into golden Dust was evidence enough that Ruby was still alive. Qrow was shaking with sobs, and Ruby’s head was lolling unresponsive against his shoulder, but she was  _ alive _ .

Speaking of golden Dust…

After who knew how long, Qrow drew back to look around, suddenly remembering that there had been a fight here. And judging by how the loser had been dispatched, he probably shouldn't lower his guard against whoever was the new Fall Maiden. With a wary glance towards the dragon, he counted himself lucky that it at least seemed incapacitated.

But the Dust… It was  _ everywhere _ . Far more than there should have been, even from the death of an elephant sized daemon.

And where was the body?

Laying Ruby gently on the ground beside her equally unresponsive daemon, he lurched to his feet and finally looked around. The wind that whipped through the destroyed office made him register on a distant level that his face was wet with tears. But in this disaster area, he had no time for them.

Gears lay everywhere, along with cracked pillars and most of the ceiling. The CCT was definitely busted, but that was barely a concern at the moment. Where was the  _ body _ ?

Stumbling forward, he glanced backwards towards Dusty, who was still sitting beside their niece. She’d keep watch for now, her stance seemed to say. He thought he’d reached the limit for how grateful he could be for his daemon, but apparently he’d been wrong.

Qrow stepped carefully over shattered bits of building and what looked like the remains of Oz’s desk. Dust was covering every surface in a film of glittering sand, and he still hadn’t found the body. 

Reaching what had to be the epicenter, judging on the concentration of Dust and at the very edge of his bond with Dusty, he realized why.

Sitting in the middle, atop a pile of golden powder and beside what looked like a trail of footprints of a woman about Winter’s size, he found a crown of bronze.

Only the crown though. Its owner was nowhere to be seen.

The almost-bonfire he’d barely seen suddenly made sense, as did the abundance of golden Dust, too much for just one daemon. Pyrrha Nikos was gone. Gone the way a daemon went, dissolved into golden light and Dust at the moment of her death.

Not even a body left to bury. Ruby hadn’t died the way Summer had at least, but it seemed like poor Miss Nikos had taken her place.


End file.
